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Japan firm blames faulty space laser for doomed moon mission

Despite back-to-back failures, ispace is planning its third moon landing attempt in 2027 with Nasa’s cooperation

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An image provided by ispace shows its Resilience lander circling the moon on June 4. Photo: ispace / AP
Associated Press
A laser navigating tool doomed a Japanese company’s lunar lander earlier this month, causing it to crash into the moon.

Officials for ispace announced the news from Tokyo on Tuesday. The crash landing was the second for ispace in two years.

This time, the company’s lander named Resilience was aiming for the moon’s far north in Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Cold. Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter relayed pictures of the crash site last week where Resilience and its mini rover ended up as wreckage.
An annotated image provided by Nasa shows the impact site for ispace’s Resilience lunar lander on June 11. Photo: Nasa/Goddard/Arizona State University/AP
An annotated image provided by Nasa shows the impact site for ispace’s Resilience lunar lander on June 11. Photo: Nasa/Goddard/Arizona State University/AP

Company officials blamed the accident on the lander’s laser rangefinder, saying it did not properly measure the spacecraft’s distance to the lunar surface. Resilience was descending at a rapid rate of 138 feet (42 metres) per second when contact was lost and crashed within seconds, they said.

Bad software caused ispace’s first lunar lander to slam into the moon in 2023. Like the latest try, the problem occurred during the final phase of descent.

Of seven moon landing attempts by private outfits in recent years, only one can claim total success: Firefly Aerospace’s touchdown of its Blue Ghost lander in March. Blue Ghost launched with Resilience in January, sharing a SpaceX rocket ride from Florida.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience lunar landers, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in January. Photo: AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience lunar landers, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in January. Photo: AFP
Aside from Texas-based Firefly, only five countries have pulled off a successful lunar landing: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan. And only the US has put astronauts on the moon, back during Nasa’s Apollo programme more than half a century ago.
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